


Greater love hath no man

by Enochian Things (Salr323)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s11e21 All In The Family, Episode: s11e22 We Happy Few, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salr323/pseuds/Enochian%20Things
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been a long time since Castiel has seen Dean.  That strange half-vision that flitted across the TV screen notwithstanding, he hasn’t seen Dean in months and he misses him deeply.  He misses the sense of wholeness he only feels when they’re close, when the bond they share is not stretched into something thin and yearning.</p><p>Missing scenes from s11e21 All in the Family (refers to events in s11e22)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greater love hath no man

It’s only after God returns that the fog begins to clear.

Castiel can sense his father’s presence just like all the angels can, even if he can’t quite believe that it’s true. But after such a long absence, the feel of that golden purpose in the heart of him again is enough to make him sit up straight in his self-constructed jail and look around.

_What are you doing, Castiel?_

__He’s uncertain whether the voice is his own or his father’s.

Either way, he doesn’t have a good answer. What _is_ he doing? He glances at the television screen – blank now – and at the shoddy reconstruction of the Winchester’s kitchen and is silent. What he’s doing is sitting it out, subordinating his will to a higher purpose. That’s what angels were made for, weren’t they? He’s just a soldier after all. And he’s discovered that he doesn’t do too well without purpose, without someone to follow.

Of course, Lucifer notices too. Not Castiel - he never notices Castiel - but he notices their father’s return. How could he not? Lucifer loved God with every element of his grace. He still does; Castiel can feel that burning, angry love suffuse him. Lucifer loves and hates God equally, because God created him and then he betrayed him. God abandoned him. God punished him.

Castiel can relate. He knows what it is to love with every element of his grace (more than that, he knows what it is to love with an aching human soul). And he knows what it is to be betrayed (and to betray). He knows what it is to be abandoned. To be punished.

_You can’t stay._

_We don't need your help._

_You can take your little apology and you can cram it up your ass._

_Nobody cares that you’re broken, Cas!_

He remembers how each and every word scorched. 

Sometimes he thinks he knows what it is to hate too, even though angels weren’t created for hate. But there have been times when he’s hated their enemies, when he’s hated himself, and when he’s hated Dean because loving him proved too painful.

So he understands the Adversary better than Lucifer might think – if Lucifer ever gave him a second thought. 

Castiel stands up and eyes the kitchen door. He’s not sure he wants to leave; it’s safe in here. But out there, something’s happening. He can feel it, but it’s a muted sensation because he’s no longer connected to the nerves and synapses of his vessel. He can tell his flesh is being hurt, though, and if he goes out there, if he steps back into the fray, he knows he’ll feel every excruciating moment of the torture.

But if he doesn’t…

He glances around the kitchen. It’s small, not lit quite right. And there’s no Dean, which renders it soulless. Perhaps he could stay here forever, but if he does he’ll never see the face of God. 

And he’ll never see Dean again.

Behind him, the television switches itself on and the preacher says, “Is it going to be alright?”

Castiel thinks, _I don’t know_ , and steps out the door and back into his vessel. 

The first thing he notices is the corruption.

He hadn’t realized how fiercely Lucifer’s grace was burning through his vessel. It wasn’t built to host an archangel, let alone one as wrathful as Lucifer, and he can feel the damage _everywhere_ ; his flesh is attenuated and weak, his vessel is failing. Even his grace is tainted and diminishing. Every moment with this creature under his skin is torment. 

He wonders, agonizingly, if this is how Jimmy Novak felt. And Claire…

And then there is pain. But it’s not coming from Lucifer, it’s coming from outside. The temptation to retreat is powerful, but Castiel resists. He’s been passive too long.

Almost blinded by the agony, he works his way back into his vessel alongside Lucifer’s icy grace. It burns where they touch, his own grace already so faded that in places there’s nothing left at all. But he perseveres.

He feels his limbs again – legs braced and trembling, arms outstretched. Pinioned. His skin is on fire, there’s something terrible and dark scalding it away, burning it up from the inside. 

He recognizes it immediately. It’s the opposite of celestial radiance; it’s Amara’s ice-cold fire. And it’s familiar. It feels like Lucifer’s grace.

It’s no surprise, he supposes, that Lucifer, who bore the mark that locked her away, should burn as cold as the Darkness. He learned his hatred from Amara, after all, and nurtured it inside himself for eons.

Lucifer’s rage has always been hers.

His vessel’s throat is raw with screaming, his neck stiff where his head is flung back. When Castiel forces himself back into his mind he finds his eyes are fixed on a distant bright doorway. Escape, impossible escape. And between him and it stands Amara, terrible in her nihilistic rage.

Lucifer blinks at her, twists the vessel’s mouth into disdain. Feigned, Castiel can tell. Lucifer is afraid. They both are. And then Amara looks up, head tilted as if she’s heard someone call. She smiles and after a beat of thought she’s gone and they’re alone.

“Well,” Lucifer says after some time has passed. He uses the vessel’s voice, but it feels wrong in his throat. “Hello Castiel.”

 _Brother_ , Castiel says. _What’s gone wrong?_

“Oh, just about everything. Your boyfriend is… truculent.”

Ignoring the taunt and, by way of an answer, Castiel says _Our father is back_. 

There’s a silence more felt than heard, then Lucifer says, “Yes.”

_Have you seen him?_

__He snorts out loud. “That,” he says, “is never going to happen. I’d rather let his bitch of a sister toss me into the empty than grovel at His feet.”

 _Our Father won’t want you to grovel_ , Castiel says. _He believes in forgiveness_.

“For everyone except me,” Lucifer spits. “And perhaps you too, now, little brother...”

He may be right; Castiel has certainly done much which might be considered unforgivable. But a great deal has changed in the millennia since God abandoned them and, for Castiel, even more has changed in the past eight years. He has changed beyond his own recognition. He wonders if it is beyond God’s.

There’s a noise outside and Lucifer lifts his – their – head to look. Castiel is a passenger only in his vessel, helpless against Lucifer’s overwhelming force. So when the vessel’s heartrate spikes, he’s certain it must be in fear. But it feels somewhat like pleasure when through the doorway walks Sam Winchester. But there is no Dean behind him, only the prophet, Donatello. And Metatron, of all things. 

They are here to rescue Lucifer, to recruit him to the battle. 

To take him to God.

***

Lucifer crumbles.

Nobody knows but Castiel, but when their father reaches out with his celestial grace – infuses them both with his love and power – Lucifer falls to his knees and sobs in impotent fury and love.

Perhaps their father sees, but if he does he says nothing. Only Castiel bears witness and he knows that his brother hates him for it.

For himself, he looks on the face of God with curiosity and a bristling defiance that he knows he learned from Dean. Not long ago, less than a heartbeat measured against the scale of his own existence, he too would have fallen to his knees. He would have worshipped, abased himself, and gloried in the beauty behind the mortal coil in which their Father has wrapped his divinity.

But instead, Castiel – who has learned to love man (a man) more than Heaven – regards his father with objectivity. He has yet to decide whether he wants, or needs, His forgiveness.

 _Hello Castiel_ , says his father at the same moment he speaks with mortal lips to Lucifer.

Startled, Castiel looks through his vessel’s eyes to see God looking back with infinite compassion. _Father_ , he says.

 _Of all my children, you have been the most surprising_ , he says. _When I left, I hoped that some of you would…adapt, change. Develop. But only you managed it, Castiel._ __

_I— I often failed_ , he says. _Mostly, I failed._

 __His father smiles and lifts a hand that exists outside of his body, touches Castiel’s grace with gentle fingers. _I know._

 _I sought your counsel_ , he says, not afraid to sound bitter. _I prayed for it, but you didn’t answer._

 _My son, you gave up everything for the right to choose._ Warmth infuses his father’s face, glory and radiance both. _Would you have had me take that choice from you?_

 _But I chose the wrong path! People died at my hands._ Angels _died. And I betrayed— I betrayed the one I love most._

He’s not ashamed that the one he loves most is not God.

His father simply says, _And you learned, Castiel. You learned doubt and sacrifice. You learned love and grief. You learned to despair. But most of all you learned to hope when all hope was lost._ He smiles, right into Castiel’s core, fills him up golden. _What else is failure for?_

 __***

Later, Castiel is tempted to return to the kitchen – his own private kitchen, not the real one in the bunker where Sam has retreated, leaving Lucifer alone in the war room. 

Castiel doesn’t like it here. It’s too uncomfortable, the reality is too harsh. Not because of Lucifer’s brooding rage, aimed in prickling cold at their father, but because soon Dean will return.

It’s been a long time since Castiel has seen Dean. That strange half-vision that flitted across the TV screen notwithstanding, he hasn’t seen Dean in months and he misses him deeply. He misses the sense of wholeness he only feels when they’re close, when the bond they share is not stretched into something thin and yearning. 

But he’s afraid too. Afraid of what he’ll see in Dean’s face, some combination of anger and disappointment. Perhaps fear. He knows Dean won’t understand his decision to subordinate himself to Lucifer. Dean has always been a man of single-minded purpose, convinced of his own mastery of fate. He believes that everything that happens to him is a product of his own actions; everything is either his fault or his responsibility. Whether good or ill, Dean always feels that he is the architect of his own destiny.

Castiel admires that self-assurance, but he doesn’t share it. His own role has always been to surrender himself to a cause, whether Heaven’s, Dean’s, or his own misguided purpose. He was born to serve, not to lead. He’s learned that lesson well.

As such, sacrificing himself so that the Light Bringer might wage war on the Darkness does not feel mistaken. Even if Dean might feel differently. 

Still. To see him again will be—

“Sonofabitch.” 

Dean makes his entrance under a cloud. Castiel can smell the stench of the Darkness all around him, inside him, running like corruption through his soul. She has her claws in deep and it makes something spark angrily through his grace – a determination to end this, to save Dean. He sits up straighter and his vessel moves with him, momentarily, until his brother wrests back control with an irritated growl.

“Dean,” Lucifer says, “come to join the party?”

Dean’s jaw is set. He looks like he’s hurting, deep down. Castiel wants to turn away. He wants to go to him. He does neither; he can’t. _Dean_ , he thinks, as if Dean could hear him pray. _Dean_ …

But Dean looks right through him. “I want you to know,” he says to Lucifer, leaning across the war room table toward them. “That the only reason – the _only_ reason – I’m tolerating you being here is because we have absolutely no other option.”

Lucifer shrugs. Castiel feels it in the shoulders of his vessel. They ache as he moves, everything aches; the muscles are sickening. His vessel is dying. 

“Am I supposed to _care_?” Lucifer yawns.

“I don’t give a fuck,” Dean says. “I just want you to _know_.” He turns away, but not fast enough. Not before his gaze lingers one moment too long on Castiel and his eyes flicker with a glimmer of hidden pain.

Lucifer sees it, of course, and Castiel feels his glee. “I think,” Lucifer says with a slow cold smile, “that you just miss your boyfriend.”

 _Leave him alone_ , Castiel bristles. It’s the wrong thing to say.

“He misses you too,” Lucifer says in retaliation. “He thinks about you all the time… “ 

Dean growls “Shut up.”

 _Shut up_ , Castiel echoes.

“He thinks about those pretty eyes…” 

“I said—“

“…those _lips_. How he’d like to taste—”

And suddenly Dean has him by the lapels of his coat, hauling him up and out of the chair. “I said shut the fuck up.” He snarls the words into Lucifer’s face, but Castiel can feel the heat of him too, against his mouth, and it pulses through his grace, through the bond they share. And he wants, he _wants_... 

Lucifer feels his longing and grins like the devil he is. “Oh, Castiel thinks you’re sexy when you’re angry,” he says and puts a hand on Dean’s hip to pull him closer. “He’s not wrong.”

Dean’s fist connects hard, but Lucifer rolls with the punch and there’s no pain. Dean’s just a man, after all. He can’t hurt an archangel.

He comes away flexing his bruised hand, his face flushed with fury. “I will fucking _bury_ you,” he spits. “You piece of shit.”

Lucifer smirks, cocks his hip against the table. “Before or after we ice your girlfriend? Oops!” He puts a hand to his lips in mock consternation. “Close your ears, Castiel.” 

_He’ll do it, you know_ , Castiel tells his brother. _He’ll bury you. Unless I do it first._

 __A smirk crawls onto the face they share. “How pathetic you are, dragged around by these wretched human _feelings_ like a dog on a leash.”

Castiel isn’t sure to which of them he’s talking. To both, perhaps.

Dean sucks air through his teeth, his brow drawn down in fury. “These human _feelings_ put you in the cage, you bastard.”

“And got me out again,” Lucifer says, head tipping to one side in faux contemplation. “You do know that’s why Castiel said yes, don’t you? Because of his _feelings_. For you.”

Castiel tries to look away; he doesn’t want to see Dean’s response. But Lucifer won’t let him. _Not now, Jiminy Cricket_ , he says. _I think you should see this_.

Dean’s eyes dip to the floor and he nods like he’s thinking it through, then he looks up and into Lucifer’s eyes. His expression has changed; it’s not angry, but urgent. Ardent. “I don’t care why you did it,” he says, and Castiel feels his heart – _his_ heart – jolt, because Dean is looking at _him_. Somehow, he’s looking past Lucifer and right into the heart of him. “But if you thought it was the right thing to do then— Well, I trust you, man. I hate it, but I trust you. And I don’t know, maybe we do need this sonofabitch in the fight.” His hand curls into Castiel’s coat again, hauling him – the vessel – closer. It’s not violent, but neither is it gentle. “But one thing I do know is that you’re coming back. You hear me? This is not how it ends. Because you and me? When this is done, we got some unfinished business, buddy.” 

And then he lets go, turns away and pushes Lucifer – Castiel – back hard enough that he stumbles.

Castiel can feel his brother’s confusion as he gets the vessel’s feet beneath him again. 

_Not what you were expecting?_ Castiel says. In truth, it wasn’t what _he_ was expecting either; he was anticipating anger, consternation, and a great deal of ‘what were you _thinking_?’

But Dean has always surprised him. From the very first moment, when he saw his beautiful broken soul in Hell, Castiel has been off-balance. _Human emotions_ , he tells his brother, _are notoriously unpredictable_. __

 __Lucifer snarls contempt as he watches Dean leave. _They’ll destroy him,_ he says _. And you too, brother, if you let them_.

Castiel doesn’t reply. Instead, he pushes his mind out beyond the confines of his vessel. He’s not so sewn in by Lucifer that he can’t stretch his wings if he so chooses. And right now he wants to – needs to – find Dean. 

He hasn’t gone far, just into the kitchen. He stands with his hands braced on the counter and his shoulders rising and falling heavily. Castiel aches to console him, but can do nothing but watch. His helplessness is agonizing.

“Cas, you sonofabitch,” Dean whispers, voice breaking over the words. “You goddamn sonofa _bitch_.”

It’s thrown out as a curse, but Castiel feels it as prayer, as longing, and answers the only way he can. _Dean_ , he says, reaching out with his tethered grace. _Dean, listen to me. It’s going to be alright. You’re going to be saved._

 __Dean starts, whirls around with such hope in his eyes. “Cas?”

He startles back, astonished. For a single transcendental moment, his grace brushes Dean’s soul and he _feels_ it – that bond, that sense of completion, that wholeness. 

And then it’s gone and the hope dies in Dean’s eyes, the darkness encroaching again as he bows his head and scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Damnit.” 

It almost breaks Castiel to see Dean like this, so hopeless, and to know that he can offer no comfort. Worse, that he can never return to him. This fight will end him, he knows that now. He can feel it in the damage to his grace, to his vessel. He won’t survive Lucifer, let alone the Darkness. His life is measured in hours.

With swelling panic, he thinks, _What if I’m wrong? What if Lucifer isn’t the answer? What if my sacrifice is a mistake?_

 __He lifts his eyes to Heaven, but God isn’t there and Castiel knows that He wouldn’t guide him anyway. This was his choice to make and, for better or worse, he’s made it.

 _It’s your destiny, brother_ , Lucifer insists, once Castiel has retreated, aching, into his ailing vessel. _Through you, God and I_ will _defeat the Darkness_. _Your subordination to me is your role in this fight, Castiel. It’s your service to the cause – your purpose._

 __He’s right, of course, but Castiel doubts that Dean will see it that way. He won’t understand the need for Castiel’s sacrifice because he could never accept that, sometimes, the only thing you can do is nothing.

But Castiel isn’t like Dean; he doesn’t believe that he can write his own fate. He doesn’t even believe that he _should_ because, whenever he’s tried, its lead to disaster. No, Castiel needs purpose; he needs to be of service. And, above all, he needs to save Dean. 

And if the only way to do that is to surrender himself to the devil, then so be it. He can’t think of any purpose he’d rather serve, any cause for which he’d rather die, than to save Dean Winchester.

**Author's Note:**

> I mostly wrote this to try and make sense of what we saw of Cas, and where his head was at, in s11e22. Hope you think it worked and thanks for reading! 
> 
> Title from John 15:13 "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as [enochian-things](http://www.enochian-things.tumblr.com/) so come and say hi! :)


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